Very few of Bobby Valentine's moves have worked for the Mets in the World Series as they find themselves in a hole. (AP)

There is none left.

One more wrong step, and the cliff crumbles beneath them.

One more false move, and the door slams shut and the lock turns.

"We have to hold them down, not let them get on base, not let them execute," left fielder Benny Agbayani said in a glum clubhouse.

Suddenly, wherever they look, there is no aid.

They see Polonia mocking them on their own bulletin board.

They see pinstripes swarming them on their own field.

And most painful of all, in their worst dreams, they see champagne corks popping late Thursday night in their own stadium.

"It's tough," Mets catcher Mike Piazza said. "We have a lot of pride in here. We're going to come out tomorrow and give it everything we've got.

"We've got a lot to be proud of. We've played them tough. All of the games have been great games. We're obviously not coming out on the right end."

The Mets have lost three of the four games played in this series -- each of them by one run. They could have won Game 1 but let it slip away in the 12th inning. They could have won Game 2 if their bullpen had held in the seventh and eighth innings.

And they could have won Game 4 had they controlled All-World shortstop Derek Jeter.

Moved into the leadoff spot by a man who is used to playing chess in late October, Jeter blasted Bobby J. Jones' first pitch of the game for a home run, then tripled and scored in the third inning.

Score another one for Joe Torre and the Yankees.

"Putting a run on the board was the difference in the game," Mets manager Bobby Valentine said of Jeter. "It was a one-run game. I was proud of Bobby Jones, the way he got out of the first inning and kept battling the entire time he was out there.

"That could have been a thing where we could have lost a little composure early. And I thought we did a good job of staying in it. We just didn't do a good enough job of capping off the lead they had."

Indeed, trailing 3-0, the Mets were pulled right back into the game in the third by Piazza's two-run homer.

After that, they put a runner on base with just one out in the fourth -- but Mike Bordick popped to left and Jones fanned.

They put a leadoff man on base in the sixth, but Robin Ventura flied to left and Agbayani hit a shot up the middle that was speared by Yankees reliever Jeff Nelson. Nelson threw to first to easily double off Todd Zeile.

"Their bullpen didn't allow us to get something going," Piazza said. "We were never in position to break out."

In the seventh, pinch-hitter Lenny Harris drew a one-out walk. But Mike Stanton entered the game and whiffed two pinch-hitters, Bubba Trammell and Kurt Abbott.

In the eighth, against closer Mariano Rivera, Zeile cracked a two-out single but Ventura popped to shortstop.

Yes, the Mets have become the latest team to discover that playing the Yankees on an October World Series stage is like taking an ice pick to your eye.

"We can't think about winning three in a row," Piazza said. "We have to think about each game as it comes.

"If we win (Thursday), who knows?"

Someone asked Alfonzo if his team could draw anything from last year's excruciating, six-game National League Championship Series against Atlanta.

"Let's put it this way," Alfonzo said. "Whatever happened last year, happened. We just have to win. We don't worry about what happened last year against the Braves.

"(The Yankees) have played good. We just have to keep on them until the end. I don't like to live in the past."

Makes sense, especially because the Mets wound up losing that Braves series.

As for the pickle in which they now find themselves, there was a lot of talk about battling and fighting and not giving up as the Mets scattered into the wee morning hours Thursday.

"They have such a deep club," Piazza said. "They have so many weapons. It seems like, throughout the postseason, it's not one guy. It's unpredictable. It's been (Paul) O'Neill, it was Jeter tonight. They're a deep club. They have a lot of experience. And it's shining through for them."

No, this isn't exactly the Kodak moment the Mets had planned.